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Saturday, May 21, 2011

Weekend Post with Darris Pratt

Sometimes productivity halts. I go through the day wondering why I don't do more. This week was a chore in particular. Training a new guy at work every night starting at 11pm. With L.A. Noire out, I made as much time as a could towards it, and now that I have beaten it, I find myself not very energized.

I turned to re-reading some of my manga. A few year back, any time I found myself with nothing to do, I would crack open my Azumanga Daioh omnibus. Azumanga Daioh is a series that could always put a smile on my face. It's always sharp with its humor, and fun and fresh every time I dive in to read.

This time I decided to go through one of my more off beat mangas.

'I'll Give It My All... Tomorrow' is more than it appears to be. It's about a man named Shizuo who is forty years old and has a stable life as a business man. Even though he's not depressed or sad, he feels like something is missing in his life. So he throws his job away, and sets out to create mangas. The problem with this is that he is quite lazy, and spends a lot of time at home playing video games while his daughter and older father support him. He gets a part-time job at a fast-food place, and restarts his life, looking for inspiration.

While the plot may seem a little silly, this is in no way a pure comedy. It is often dark and gritty, and to-the-gut realistic. Shizuo has lots of problems to deal with, and one of them has to do with getting to know his daughter, who he had never really connected with on a real emotional level. He finds out things about her he never knew before, and starts to view the world differently. He also has problems coming into terms with his own creativity, and doesn't know what kind of mangas he wants to create, or even how to go about making them. It's quite the emotional ride.

It's a story worth checking out. A good read.

"Weekend Post is a short, off-topic piece about whatever Darris is thinking about that day."